


A White Meadow Guarded By Red Roses

by flanthatman



Category: RWBY
Genre: How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I think Oscar comes in later, My First Work in This Fandom, Other, POV Third Person, Please Don't Hate Me, Ruby is a ghost AU, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Whitley POV, Whitley is a victim, this is kinda sad sorry y'all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-12-30 19:50:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18321860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flanthatman/pseuds/flanthatman
Summary: Whitley was lonely, that was just a fact of life.That was until a ghost followed his sister home.





	1. Prologue

She doesn’t remember anything.

She can feel pain, though. Hurts as if fire burning in her core, slowly turning her to ash. Lava courses through her veins, filling her with agony. Yet, she feels so empty. It hurt so much, but she can’t move. She doesn’t even think she can breathe.

She can hear the screams of people nearby. Some sound like a cry for help, while others echo in an inhuman roar. She can hear sobbing, too. Someone is calling out her name.

What is her name? She can’t remember. 

A balloon bursts open in her head. She remembers something. Something important. She can’t believe she didn’t recognize it before.

She can feel her feet wobble as she stands. Her eyes burn with a passion, a reason. She summons her strength to open her eyes. Her silver meets gold. She can only see the silent promise of destruction, buried deep within the woman’s golden eyes.

She can hear the yelling again. Someone behind her is telling her something, but she doesn't hear.

She doesn’t care. She only needs to do one thing.

She needs to protect her family.


	2. Wild Snow Seeks Out Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whitley tries to #expose Weiss and meets someone.

Whitley woke to the sounds of heels clicking on the marble floor outside his room. 

Well, he wasn’t really asleep. Whitley had been dozing off as he looked through the window, watching a few Atlas airships go by. He wondered if Winter was in any of the ships, looking down at the manor. He didn't have to imagine her face, as it always seemed to be pinched in disgust around Whitley.

Along with the clicks, he could hear whispers. Whitley already knew who it was. Who else would dare to disobey Father and run away in the middle of the night? And, of course, which member of staff would help her?

Whitley got up and headed to his door. As he reached the doorknob, he got an ingenious idea. Instead, he crossed over to his nightstand and dialed Klein using his scroll. After some buzzes, the butler picked up.

“Master Whitley! I-”

“Klein, I need you to make sure my papers are in order for tomorrow's meeting. As heir, I need everything to be perfect, right?”

“Um… yes, of course. I’ll be just a moment.” 

Once the call had ended, Whitley finally opened the door and quietly headed downstairs. He knew all the secret entrances exiting the manor were on the first floor. After all, his younger years were spent exploring the Schnee Manor. He was confident no one knew the manor better than himself. And if he was correct, then Klein must plan to use the passageway in the library.

As he crept down the large staircase guarded by two hollow knights, Whitley reviewed his plan to check for any mistakes. His plan was simple; when he caught Weiss trying to sneak out, he would call for Father and General Ironwood. After Klein comes back downstairs, he will have to confess to Father he was helping Weiss run away, or stay silent and let her take the fall. Both of the options would make Weiss despair, as she would be betrayed by the person she trusted most or get him fired.

Whitley grinned devilishly. Too easy, he thought, already delighted of the misery he would subject his sister to.

Before getting to the library, he saw Weiss hiding behind a chair in the hallway. It appeared she listening into Father’s study, where Whitley could already hear Father and General Ironwood’s loud voices arguing. But before he could do anything, Weiss saw him. His elder sister immediately stood up and crouched into a fighting position, an impulse she developed. Something she never did before leaving Atlas.

After coming back from Beacon, Weiss had changed. Instead of her tiara, she now wore a torn red cloth around her side ponytail and kept a rose-like pendent across her waistcloth. She was always somber, walking around the manor like some sort of ghost. She never smiled, and never laughed. Once, upon seeing a plate of cookies Klein had baked for her, she burst into tears as if he had brought her a plate of a dog’s head instead.

Whitley assumed her mourning-like state was because the Fall of Beacon, as many people died that night. He remembers watching the Vytal Tournament and seeing that robot get ripped apart by the star pupil from Beacon. He had heard the pupil died only moments later. Everyone was shocked, and it seemed everyone knew at least one person who died during the fall. It was likely one of her own friends was killed. 

While he did feel some sort of pity for her, Whitley never did like his sister. Both of his sisters for that matter. Winter and Weiss both left him here, left him with Father to suffer. His sisters banded together against him, and when Whitley turned his back, they had the audacity to act as he betrayed them.

Weiss left him alone to swim with the sharks once. Whitley was going to make sure she doesn’t, never again. Even if that meant throwing her into the water instead.

“...and if that's the case, I’d think you’d want to be on my good side.”

Whitley smiled with cruel glee once again this evening as he heard General Ironwood’s footsteps walk towards the closed door. It seems like ruining Weiss’ chances at deserting was going to be easier than he expected.

Weiss, unfortunately, had other plans. She quickly summoned her semblance and placed a black glyph on the doorknob, preventing the general from opening the door. Then, looking at Whitley with a quick look of distaste and anger, ran down the hall. As she was running, the pendant she had gotten from Beacon fell loose and skidded across the floor.

Does she really think I’m that idiotic? He thought. Whitley knew his sister was attempting to stall him by hoping he would try to open the door and tell Father. But he studied their family’s semblance for ages and knew there was no chance at opening the door with a gravity glyph attached. The only way it would open is if Weiss dissolved it, or the glyph no longer had any aura to hold it. 

So, he ran after Weiss as fast as he could, picking up the pendant to show Father proof he had seen her if she does manage to hide from him. Though she was running much faster (How was she running with heels on?), Whitley knew the shortcuts to get to the library much quicker. For example, going through the kitchen was a shorter walk than of going past the statue of a two-headed snake. As long as you know where the secret door was to the library’s side entrance, that is.

When Whitley entered the library and saw Weiss skid through the main entrance seconds after he did, he thought he had won. But looking his sister in the eyes, he knew something was going to wrong. Instead of fear of being caught and returned to Father, Whitley saw persistence, determination, and pure loathing. 

He had been so bewildered by the look in her eyes, it seemed he had neglected to watch where he was going and almost tripped. But when he looked down, his plan at stopping his sister was shattered.

There, at his feet, was a black glyph. It was bigger, but still identical to the one she had placed on the doorknob of Father’s office. 

Whitley could only watch in shame as his sister crept towards him, tensed as if ready to pounce at any given moment. Weiss looked him in the eye once more, still frozen in loathing and conviction.

“You will not keep me here. I’m not your prisoner, my life is mine and you’re not taking that away from me. I’m leaving, and never coming back.” She spat, then looked over to where the bookcase had opened up, revealing Klein watching their display.

Weiss walked towards the secret passage, her heels clicking painfully slow across the marble floor. Without looking over her shoulder, she called out to her brother.

”Enjoy your title of heir, Whitley.” And with that, she and Klein disappeared into the bookshelf, leaving him to suffocate within the grim silence.

The pendant she left behind felt like ice in his palm.  
__________

Crawling onto his bed, Whitley sighed in relief. That was too close. Moments after Weiss escaped and the glyph had dissipated, General Ironwood burst into the library and almost saw him run back into the kitchen. He had heard Father’s yelling echo behind him as he sprinted as quietly as he could. 

Now he was back in his room, again sisterless and downcasted.

Whitley felt a string of frustration tighten inside him. He was trapped here, again. He couldn’t escape this awful place, no matter how he tried. Yet, his sisters escaped outside, and never looking back, not even for him. 

His frustration boiled under his skin and his palm dug into the pendant still in his hand. Why could they leave? Why did he have to stay here? Why couldn’t he do anything right? How could they leave him? Why didn’t they just-

Whitley already knew. It was all because of their semblance. 

Whitley curled in dejection. They could leave because they had aura. They left him behind because he didn’t.

People knew of the Schnee hereditary semblance, everyone knew how useful it was on the battlefield. This was why Winter could escaping through the military and Weiss through huntsmanship. No one in their right mind would let a Schnee fight without the help of their semblance. 

And how unlucky was he, to have almost no aura when that was all he needed to leave. 

Stupid aura deficiency, Whitley thought bitterly. He was trapped here, all alone. He had always known he was trapped, it was a fact. That didn't stop it from hurting, though. 

Anger rushed through him like fire. Whitley leaped off his bed and stormed over to his mirror, a gift from Father for his fifth birthday. His hand still curled around the pendant, not yet ready to let it go, and looked into his reflection. Whitley saw someone terrible in that mirror. Someone angry, miserable, cold, and unloved.

Whitley saw someone who was weak.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on his aura. It was already unlocked, but he always had to concentrate to even get his aura to work. It wasn’t hard, as he had done this a thousand times, but it was still a little painful. 

Whitley’s aura flared to life in a trickle of white light, covering his body. He could feel his aura act strangely, feeling like an itch, but he kept going, as it had been a while since he’d done something like this. Soon, his aura was activated, but Whitley kept going. I can do this, he thought.

Whitley put his sister’s pendant down next to the mirror, then put his hands together and opened his eyes. He willed his aura into his hands and imagined the many times Whitley saw his sisters do the same. He could see a tiny circle start to form in the center of his hands, but just as he got his hopes up, it disappeared. No matter how far he pushed his aura, Whitley couldn’t recreate the tiny glyph and soon fell to the ground in both defeat and exhaustion.

Whitley attempted to breathe and stand, but frustrated tears welled up his eyes anyways. He couldn’t use his aura. No matter how hard he tried and how much he studied, Whitley was useless. He looked into the mirror, but still saw the weakling who was too afraid to stand up for himself. He was too weak to do anything, and tonight only proved his fruitlessness.

While looking into the mirror, he spotted the abandoned pendent, glowing with some of his aura from when he was holding it. Sudden resentment, at both his sister and himself, pushed him to get up. He grabbed and threw his sister’s pendant across the room in a fit of burning anger. 

Whitley stood there for moments after that, panting in the sudden movement after he was already exhausted, when he heard a slight ring against the floor. He looked over to where he threw the pendant, finding it was still glowing in white light, but with a mix of red as well. 

He cautiously walked closer and picked up the brightened pendant. With the pendant glowing in red and white, Whitley thought fascinated, it looked like a multicolored rose. After a while of watching the light up rose, he noticed the colors moving down his hand and twisting around his arm. Noticing his multicolored arm, he dropped the pendant in sudden surprise and took a few quick steps back.

As Whitley focused on it, the light around the pendant started to rise. Soon, as he was still frozen in fear and amazement, the red and white blob turned into a humanoid shape. Then, all of the red drained back into the pendant, only leaving the white shape to turn into a person in a hooded cloak. Or what could be called a person, since he couldn’t see the person’s body or feet, the cloak just suspended in the air.

Whitley, who still couldn’t believe this was happening, did something incredibly stupid and called out to the long, white cloak. 

“Hello…?” Whitley flinched at his own voice. I sound like a toddler… he thought without the same venom as before, as his attention was still on the person in white. It didn’t seem to hear him, or more likely, ignored him. 

That’s when the hood did something quite strange.

It looked up from the floor and stared at him from under the hood. But instead of a face, there was white light, looking like a person’s aura, but no actual person was there. Then the aura faded into a rose red and condensed to make the aura-like light into a solid color.

The white of the cloak changed too. It changed to red as well, the color spreading down the back of the cloak as if blood was dumped on the hood and was running down the cape. The red was beautiful, Whitley concluded, resembling the color of roses and stood out quite nicely in his white room. 

Then the red aura disappeared into nothing, leaving the cloak to drop onto the floor.

But when the cloak dropped, the shape suggested that someone was still in the cloak. The shape moved, then two very human-looking hands came out and reached towards the hood. The hands stopped and slowly rotated, the hood inspecting them as if believing its own hands weren’t supposed to be there.

Whitley was still standing there in shock and fear and awe, not quite sure what to do.

The cloak rustled again and stood up, revealing its legs and its body, both very much human. (Did Whitley mention it looked very human?) The hood, now moving on from its hands, inspected Whitley’s room instead. It felt like forever when the hood’s face finally looked towards him.

Whitley stared inside the hood, expecting the white personless aura, but was instead greeted by widened silver eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's here! Again, if you have any criticism, please say it. This chapter was kind of rushed to get out. I hope you enjoyed it and see you soon! <3

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic so feel free to post any criticism you may have in the comments. Thank you all for reading! <3


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